Words are wind. Indeed they are in this story, but not in this instance. Why?

[Seams]

2 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Would you be so kind as to elaborate which you think is happening?

1.      Is Bran talking through the heart tree

2.     or are the old gods talking through the heart tree

I don't want to substitute my opinion for Macgregor's, but I'll throw in my two cents in answer to your question: my answer would be either or both.

GRRM seems to be creating a deliberately grey area in the communication with the trees. Maybe it's Bran; maybe it's the old gods; maybe Bran IS an old god; maybe the Children of the Forest have created an Internet-type system where numerous people (with the right server access) can communicate.

When I was finally writing out the long Theon theory I've been pondering, I noticed this interesting parallel or inverse detail about his communication with the Winterfell weirwood tree.

1) In the ADwD chapter called The Turncloak, Theon falls to his knees beneath the weirwood and appeals, "Save me." The snow is silent and then he hears sobbing. He surmises that the sobbing is coming from Jeyne Poole, a victim of Ramsay Snow (now Bolton). He goes back to the castle, passing images of the northern lords and Lady Dustin made of snow. In other words, the Stark bannermen appear to be frozen "snow men" at this point, loyal to Ramsay Snow. Inside the great hall Theon immediately observes:

"Scraps were thrown on the floor to be gobbled up by Ramsay's girls and the other dogs.

The girls were glad to see him. They knew him by his smell. Red Jeyne loped over to lick at his hand, and Helicent slipped under the table and curled up by his feet, gnawing a bone. They were good dogs. It was easy to forget that every one was named for a girl that Ramsay had hunted and killed."

So the message here seems to be that the snow (symbolizing Ramsay Snow) is preventing the old gods from hearing Theon's appeal for help. The "girls," including one named Jeyne, are still dogs (Doh! Wordplay! Dog and god!) In case we missed the anti-god symbolism of the dogs, we get one who is named Helicent = hell-sent.

2) In Theon's next POV in ADwD, a chapter called A Ghost in Winterfell, he starts with a walk in the bitter cold and with the Ramsay's girls (dogs) in the feast hall. He eventually returns to the gods wood and makes a new plea: "A sword, that's all I ask." He is answered this time with a leaf (a CotF allusion) and the name Bran, murmured by the tree, as well as the perception of Bran's face in the tree. Immediately he hears a voice and finds the washerwomen - Holly and Rowan and one other, all of whom are named for trees. Rowan says, "You prayed, and the gods sent us."

I believe what's happening here, with the dog/god reversal and the transformation of girls from victims to killers (as well as trees), was foreshadowed way back in AGoT. Robb and Theon took the crippled Bran on a hunting excursion with the direwolves and Bran was almost killed by wildlings and a Night's Watch deserter until Theon saved him with the precise shot of an arrow. Before the wildlings attacked Bran, the direwolves had gone off into the woods and Robb and Theon went to find them saying, “Let’s hunt down the hunters then.” (Bran V, AGoT) In the absence of wolves, who are also hunters, wildings appear. Four books later, we get a similar scenario with the washerwomen appearing and taking charge of Theon this time, not Bran and, at the same time, sort of avenging all of the women Ramsay hunted.

So Bran is there and the old gods also seem to be present but maybe working through both trees and murderous agents.

[Clegane'sPup]

I just gotta say I think "words are wind" means "talk is cheap."

[chrisdaw]

Yeah I think there's a hidden point in the words are wind thing, it fits into the tongue of the COTF and Bran's attempted communications sounding like noises of nature. Something is brewing here between Arya and Bran by way of the COTF language, relating to whispers, the dead (ghosts), magic and wind (or natural forces).

Some of the relevant passages have been quoted (I think? Note using real quotes makes it hard to track) but I believe the Whispers and the story about it relate too. The talking dead heads brings to mind the FM face collections, the memories of the original owners that come with changing a face like talking to the dead. And all similar to the feeling of traces of people skinchangers feel when inhabiting animals.

Hardhome too, it's dead voices in the aftermath ring similar to the whispers.

Arya ghost/whisper language that seems uniquely common to her, often guiding or as warding.

Quote

"I don't want to go there," Hot Pie squeaked as Harrenhal opened its gates to them. "There's ghosts in there."

Chiswyck heard him, but for once he only smiled. "Baker boy, here's your choice. Come join the ghosts, or be one."

Join the ghosts or be one.

Quote

She had killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I'm the ghostin Harrenhal, she thought.

Quote

It made her feel strong to hold it, remembering how she'd seen the ghost in Harrenhal. She could kill with a whisper then.

GRRM returns to this one, she becomes the ghost and kills with a whisper.

Quote

The smallfolk hereabouts shunned the place, Tom told her; it was said to be haunted by the ghosts of the children of the forest who had died here when the Andal king named Erreg the Kinslayer had cut down their grove. Arya knew about the children of the forest, and about the Andals too, but ghosts did not frighten her. She used to hide in the crypts of Winterfell when she was little, and play games of come-into-my-castle and monsters and maidens amongst the stone kings on their thrones. 

Yet even so, the hair on the back of her neck stood up that night. She had been asleep, but the storm woke her. The wind pulled the coverlet right off her and sent it swirling into the bushes. When she went after it she heard voices.

Quote

By sunset they were at the top, making camp where no harm could come to them. Arya walked around the circle of weirwood stumps with Lord Beric's squire Ned, and they stood on top of one watching the last light fade in the west. From up here she could see a storm raging to the north, but High Heart stood above the rain. It wasn't above the wind, though; the gusts were blowing so strongly that it felt like someone was behind her, yanking on her cloak. Only when she turned, no one was there.

Ghosts, she remembered. High Heart is haunted.

Wind plays a conspicuous hand in the lead in to the ghost of HH.

Quote

Outside the inn on a weathered gibbet, a woman's bones were twisting and rattling at every gust of wind.

I know this inn. There hadn't been a gibbet outside the door when she had slept here with her sister Sansa under the watchful eye of Septa Mordane, though. "We don't want to go in," Arya decided suddenly, "there might be ghosts."

Winds and ghosts.

Quote

"Valar dohaeris." He touched two fingers to his brow. "I beg you remember Ternesio Terys and the service he has done you."

"I will," Arya said in a small voice. The wind tugged at her cloak, insistent as a ghost. It was time she was away.

Winds and ghosts pulling the way to the FM.

No humans can speak the language of the COTF but ravens can, maybe it's a case of Bran teaching Arya to skinchange ravens and then they'll be able to communicate, as the COTF used ravens to communicate over long distances. Perhaps they need to skinchange the same raven, and can speak to each other inside of it, like how Bran can comprehend Hodor's whimpers when he skinchanges him.

Whatever the details I'm pretty confident it all has to do with Bran finding a way to communicate with others, specifically Arya, and thus being able to explain to them what he needs them to do to win the Long Night.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

10 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said:

  Hide contents

So do you see it as Brans plan to get the execution ball rolling and when it is about to happen he steps in and performs some kind of feat that is a show of pure Old gods power, thus saving Theon and getting Stannis' full attention as well as boosting the Northmens hopes that their old gods are here to take a hand in matters.

In this scenario Bran doesn't really want Theon dead then, just using him as part of a plan?

I can see it happening, I have never believed fully that Theon will be sacrificed to the tree and there is more to come from him. 

I have thought that as the execution is about to happen, Theon pleads with Stannis to look at the tree as he has heard the old gods talk to him with Brans face before, but in a really dramatic way, I mean like pleading, screaming, and lo and behold, they look and listen and sure as shit they hear the whispers and see the face of Bran Stark. 

There must be an urgency to this all as the battle is coming soon is it not? The Freys and Manderlys are loose and people will be falling through the ice soon IIRC.

 

Spoiler

Yes, the bolded is exactly it.

I don't know if Bran has a plan for Theon, that is yet to be revealed. But I sincerely doubt Martin kept Theon alive through all this torture, gave him so much character development only to kill him off in his second TWOW chapter. Feels anticlimatic.

Stannis will win the Battle of Ice, for sure. I think he fakes his death after that which is why Ramsey says he's dead in the PL....but it is yet to be seen what plans Stannis and Bran have in store, and how Theon and Asha are going to play into it.

I'm thinking Bran's miracle at the heart tree has to be something pretty big, not just his face because many northmen won't recognise him. He probably will speak very clearly, in a way that everyone will hear him for sure (and there'll be no ambiguity whether it was wind, leaves rustling or something) and say that Theon should be spared, or that Bran is alive, something. Whatever happens, this development will simultaneously be GRRM's way of giving us a hint how much Bran's training has progressed too.

 

[ravenous reader]

'Words are wind' -- talk is cheap.  And yet...

I think GRRM decided to make the night 'windless,' so that the reader could not explain away the 'rustling' by saying it was 'just the leaves in the wind' and a figment of the imagination of the listener.  There's definitely something supernatural going on, hinting at Bran's advancement in his powers, with the communication facilitated on a 'windless' night.  Thereby, GRRM teases us with the possibility that Bran may be able to accomplish 'third-eye' communications without 'hitching a ride on the wind' -- akin to telepathy or telekinesis.  When Bran contacts his father, via wind, this is done at an early stage in his training.  When, however, he contacts Theon, this represents an advanced stage of his training (think of it as Star Wars-type 'Jedi' training with Yoda, a step up from Obi Wan Kenobi!), so he is able to rustle the leaves without using air.  Spooky stuff!  GRRM deliberately leaves us in suspense, however, as to whether Bran is able to accomplish this over different 'time zones.'  He just likes stringing us along for the ride, and we bite at the bone like one of Ramsay's well-trained 'bitches.'

[Clegane'sPup]

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

'Words are wind' -- talk is cheap.  And yet...

I think GRRM decided to make the night 'windless,' so that the reader could not explain away the 'rustling' by saying it was 'just the leaves in the wind' and a figment of the imagination of the listener.  There's definitely something supernatural going on, hinting at Bran's advancement in his powers, with the communication facilitated on a 'windless' night.  Thereby, GRRM teases us with the possibility that Bran may be able to accomplish 'third-eye' communications without 'hitching a ride on the wind' -- akin to telepathy or telekinesis.  When Bran contacts his father, via wind, this is done at an early stage in his training.  When, however, he contacts Theon, this represents an advanced stage of his training (think of it as Star Wars-type 'Jedi' training with Yoda, a step up from Obi Wan Kenobi!), so he is able to rustle the leaves without using air.  Spooky stuff!  GRRM deliberately leaves us in suspense, however, as to whether Bran is able to accomplish this over different 'time zones.'  He just likes stringing us along for the ride, and we bite at the bone like one of Ramsay's well-trained 'bitches.'

You and I have obviously read different books.

[Macgregor of the North]

12 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

I came across Osha’s remark a couple days ago when I was yapping in a different thread. The full context is in GoT c.53.

"They are my gods too," Osha said. "Beyond the Wall, they are the only gods. <snip> "No, stay," Bran commanded her. "Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods."

Osha studied him. "You asked them and they're answering. Open your ears, listen, you'll hear."

Taken at face value Osha’s statement implies the old gods can be heard and understood.

To me the often repeated “words are wind” mean “talk is cheap.”

Would you be so kind as to elaborate which you think is happening?

1.      Is Bran talking through the heart tree

2.     or are the old gods talking through the heart tree

It's yet to be seen if Bran sighs at himself in the future through the tree but it's highly possible as Bran is... The old gods now.

[Macgregor of the North]

5 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

  Hide contents

Yes, the bolded is exactly it.

I don't know if Bran has a plan for Theon, that is yet to be revealed. But I sincerely doubt Martin kept Theon alive through all this torture, gave him so much character development only to kill him off in his second TWOW chapter. Feels anticlimatic.

Stannis will win the Battle of Ice, for sure. I think he fakes his death after that which is why Ramsey says he's dead in the PL....but it is yet to be seen what plans Stannis and Bran have in store, and how Theon and Asha are going to play into it.

I'm thinking Bran's miracle at the heart tree has to be something pretty big, not just his face because many northmen won't recognise him. He probably will speak very clearly, in a way that everyone will hear him for sure (and there'll be no ambiguity whether it was wind, leaves rustling or something) and say that Theon should be spared, or that Bran is alive, something. Whatever happens, this development will simultaneously be GRRM's way of giving us a hint how much Bran's training has progressed too.

 

Spoiler

Hey again Wee Scribe. I mean a plan in the sense that if Bran is in the Raven trying to instigate Theons execution, only to then do an Old gods power reveal, then that's like a plan really isn't it? 

Im agreed Stannis wins battle of ice and I can't wait to read how the aftermath plays out.

Bran has already shown he has the power to talk to Theon when it is windless so he will be able to send a clearer message at the Heart tree to Stannis etc. possibly. Although I garauntee it will be windy at that tree so it will have to be something outstanding. 

The cold winds are rising where I live, Winter is coming, I feel it in my bones. I just hope the book is coming soon to. 

 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

8 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said:

  Hide contents

Hey again Wee Scribe. I mean a plan in the sense that if Bran is in the Raven trying to instigate Theons execution, only to then do an Old gods power reveal, then that's like a plan really isn't it? 

Im agreed Stannis wins battle of ice and I can't wait to read how the aftermath plays out.

Bran has already shown he has the power to talk to Theon when it is windless so he will be able to send a clearer message at the Heart tree to Stannis etc. possibly. Although I garauntee it will be windy at that tree so it will have to be something outstanding. 

The cold winds are rising where I live, Winter is coming, I feel it in my bones. I just hope the book is coming soon to. 

 

Spoiler

Oops, I misunderstood you. Yes, that is kind of a plan  

I was just thinking as I was writing out all the above posts, how excited I am for the Battle of Ice/Wall/Bran-BR in Winds.I really hope it comes out next year

 

[Macgregor of the North]

1 hour ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Oops, I misunderstood you. Yes, that is kind of a plan  

I was just thinking as I was writing out all the above posts, how excited I am for the Battle of Ice/Wall/Bran-BR in Winds.I really hope it comes out next year

 

Same. The last wee batch of secretive posts(lol) have peaked my buzz about the release of Winds. Hopefully not too much longer.